Once again, we're asking small business owners for their insight into how to deal with the financial crisis. If you're not a member of the Insight Community sign up today to earn money for your insights.

As you probably know from our earlier cases, American Express is sponsoring a conversation here in the Insight Community concerning how small businesses are dealing with the financial crisis. Already, a bunch of the insights generated by those earlier discussions have made their way to American Express' OPEN Forum blog. Some great examples of the type of content include Zack Miller's post on Black Swan Contingency Planning and Dennis Howlett's Quick Tips for Small Businesses. If you decide to participate in this case, we suggest those two posts are great examples of the level of quality to strive for.

This time, we're looking for more insight from small business owners on issues as we approach the end of the year. How are you approaching your strategy for the end of this year, as many are worried that holiday spending won't be what it's been in the past? Alternatively, how are you gearing up for this financial climate as we head into 2009 and how would you recommend others do so. We're also curious how the changing political environment, and the various efforts to create various stimulus packages (or bailouts) might impact the way you do business.

To enter, please submit a post around these concepts. Please try to avoid just listing out the questions here and answering each one separately. The description is just a conversation starter, from which we hope you'll craft an interesting, insightful, compelling, and relevant blog post that will be helpful to small business owners, such as yourself. The goal here is to go beyond what everyone else is talking about, and dig a little deeper.

This case uses the "claiming" system. You can claim a slot and reserve that spot for yourself, guaranteeing payment if the response actually does meet the guidelines laid out in the case description. Any insight that is selected to then be placed on the American Express OpenForum blog, also will be designated a "top insight" and the authors will be granted the additional bonus on top of the guaranteed claim amount. Please be aware that claiming a spot but failing to submit an insight will lead to a poor rating and an inability to participate in future cases.